Indie Queen

I'm declaring next week Parker Posey Week here on Blasphemous Rumours. Why? Because I can.

News

Here is the Austrailian cover for a reprint of The Dollmaker. So different from the original cover, but I do like it. I especially appreciate how big my name is.

This week I met with my critique group to brainstorm a thriller/mystery series that's been rolling around in my head for a couple of years now. I've been working on it now and then when I have a few minutes, which probably explains why it's never been fully developed. It's one of those ideas, though, and one of those characters that just won't let go.

Work continues on The Whispering Room, which will be out March, 2009.

Texas Ransom, my next Intrigue, will be out in January.

I turned in the first draft of the script for The Devil's Footprints trailer and we should be getting something going in another week or two.

I'll be doing a radio interview in February on Lisa's Walk the Talk show.

I've signed up to attend ThrillerFest in New York next July. I may even find myself on a panel. I'll keep you posted.

Sid News: The little kitty is much, much better. So much better, in fact, that in a few days time, he's gone from being pitiful to a full-blown nuisance. He's out of his little quarantine room and now in my office, sitting on the back of my chair even as I type this. My big cat, Lola, came in with us for a few minutes this morning, but didn't hang around long. I think that's progress, though.

More later...

Rusty Spoons

Do you guys know about Salad Fingers? It's a strange (truly strange) Flash cartoon series created by David Firth. These videos have been around for a while (the San Francisco Chronicle ranked Salad Fingers in the top 10 pop culture phenomena of 2005), but I still love watching them.

In the surreal cartoons, the eponymous Salad Fingers inhabits a desolate, sparsely populated world in which he revels in the delightful feeling of the textures of various objects on his salad fingers. He particularly enjoys rusty articles, especially spoons (source).

The eerie music featured in the background is the tune "Beware the Friendly Stranger" by Boards of Canada. Other music included in Salad Fingers episodes includes work credited to Brian Eno, Sigur Ros and Aphex Twin, and Firth has cited the films of David Lynch and Tim Burton as sources of inspiration.

No wonder I love this weird little guy.

The New Breed

Variety is reporting that Universal Pictures will turn the life of Joe Namath into a feature film, with Jake Gyllenhaal playing the Hall of Fame quarterback. Admittedly, I'm not a Gyllenhaal fan (brother or sister), but that aside, this seems like truly strange casting. Almost as weird and improbable as:

Ryan Phillippe, along with Sean Bean and Abbie Cornish, will be starring in a Viking epic called Last Battle Dreamer (source: Film Drunk). Phillippe's role is a seventh-century Viking warrior named Thorfinn who, along with his older brother, the battle-scarred Hakon (Sean Bean), invades Britain. Now I do like Ryan Phillippe (well, except for that whole cheating episode) and I think he's cute as a button. But a Viking warrior? I don't think so. To quote the Film Drunk reporter: "Vikings are supposed to be like ZZ Top killing priests with axes, not androgynous, pouty-lipped pretty boys." Sean Bean, however, works completely for me.

Both of these, uh, interesting castings bring me to an old NY Times article (Hollywood's He-Men Are Bumped by Sensitive Guys) about the trend in left-brain sensibility in the new breed of movie heroes. You can read the article for yourself here, but I've culled what I thought were some of the more interesting quotes.

According to producer Peter Guber: ''The access of women at the very top of the food chain at the studios -- Amy Pascal at Sony, Nina Jacobson at Disney, Stacey Snider at Universal, Sherry Lansing at Paramount -- has to mean a leavening of the testosterone effect. Their impact is felt. It's not by design, not as a cabal; it just references their taste."

Gone (for the most part) are the American leading men of square jaw, flinty gaze and imposing physique. The new generation of Hollywood heroes are "soft of cheek, with limpid stares and wiry frames." In other words, the Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford-types are out and the new "in" guys are (according to the article) the thoughtful vegetarian Tobey Maguire; the aforementioned Jake Gyllenhaal; the slim, British and very pretty Orlando Bloom; the baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio and the brooding Ryan Gosling.

But according to casting director Debra Zane, it may not be just a matter of shifting tastes, but the failure of supply to meet demand. ''There's always the desire for the sort of Russell Crowe types, which is to say a man's man. They're always in demand. And in short supply. And why is that? I don't know why.''

Robert Newman, a leading agent at International Creative Management, offers this explanation: ''We have a lot of pretty guys running around with six-pack abs, but they lack authenticity and credibility. In the 1950's a lot of men had been in the war; some of them became actors. They lived hard lives. There was a weight that came out of it. When Steve McQueen took his shirt off, he's thin, he's not ripped. There's a hardness and danger about him because of who he was.''

With the ongoing Iraq war, the trend could shift again. Robert Sklar, a professor of cinema studies at New York University, has an interesting take. His quote from the article: ''It's certainly possible that the second gulf war is going to turn the cultural definition of masculinity in new ways. We're seeing a kind of sacrifice and heroism by young people that we haven't seen in a long time in this country. That's going to impact on the kinds of stories screenwriters write, and the kind of actors we need to play them."

Perhaps that explains the popularity of someone like Clive Owen, who seems to combine left-brain sensibility with right-brain toughness (or did I get those mixed up?) And the rave reviews Daniel Craig received for his badass, yet emotional portrayal of James Bond. Some say he is a 007 for the dangerous times we live in now, a guy who does more than just pose and toss off one-liners. He's a rugged, rough-around-the-edges spy/assassin who actually looks like he can take care of business.

Carrot?

Yes, please.

Pointless Feuds

I saw this list on Best Week Ever.

The 10 Funniest Pointless Rivalries Of All Time:

10. Uncle Jessie and Kimmy Gibbler (I always wanted to see him smack that annoying brat)
9. Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump (in the words of the South Park kids--don't care, don't care, don't care)
8. Kanye West and 50 Cent (I'm going with 50 Cent)
7. Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner (gotta admire Wile's persistence)
6. Uncle Phil and Jazz (who?)
5. Captain Ahab and Moby Dick (kind of exciting, kind of boring)
4. Al Bundy and Marcy D’Arcy (tee!)
3. Michael Scott and Toby (ah, Toby)
2. Jerry Seinfeld and Newman (I love how Jerry's mother gets into this feud, too)
1. Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders (I'm kind of over Homer, but I still love Bart)

Fred Claus

There's nothing I like better than kicking off the holiday season watching Christmas movies. At my house, Elf, Christmas Vacation and Ernest Saves Christmas are perennial favorites and more to our (questionable) taste than some of the classics (downers) like It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol. So the day after Thanksgiving, we braved the traffic to see Fred Claus, a movie I'd been looking forward to for quite some time because I love, love, love Vince Vaughn (cuddly).

To be honest, Fred Claus is not a great film. Some would argue it's not even a very good film. It only has a fresh rating of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I don't care. I still enjoyed it.

At its very core, Fred Claus is a story about a dysfunctional family. Vince Vaughn plays the embittered older brother to Paul Giamatti's stressed-out Santa (Nick), Miranda Richardson is the nagging, yet well-meaning Mrs. Claus, Rachel Weisz is Fred's long-suffering girlfriend, Kathy Bates is the overbearing and overly critical mother who obviously prefers her younger son, and Kevin Spacey is a villain with an old grudge and some really cool eye specs.

The snow globe is probably my favorite part of the movie, but I also love the bit where Fred goes to a Siblings Anonymous meeting to talk about what it's like living in his brother's shadow only to find that he has to wait his turn behind Roger Clinton, Frank Stallone and Stephen Baldwin.

I'm not exactly going to recommend Fred Claus because it does have a lot of weaknesses and it's not nearly as funny as I had hoped. But I will say this--it's a beautiful-looking movie and it certainly put me in the Christmas spirit. So I got what I wanted from it.

Are You A Weirdo?

Find out just how weird you really are.

My results:

You Are 48% Weirdo

You're definitely quite strange, but you can act like a normal person when you have to. (But just because you can act normally, it certainly doesn't mean you want to!) You have normal aspects to your personality...but you usually don't choose to emphasize them.

Are You A Weirdo?

News

Well, the big vegan Thanksgiving dinner is over and now it's time to get back to work. My current projects:

The Devil's Footprints--just finished the page proofs on Monday, and now I'm working on the script for the trailer, plus planning some PR in the next three months leading up to the March 1st release.

The Whispering Room--just finished the art fact sheets and I'm continuing to work on the outline.

Rachel's Story--an online prequel to The Devil's Footprints which will run on eHarlequin.com in February (I think.)

Texas Ransom--will be out in January (Intrigue).

Sid News: I took my little kitty in for his checkup on Tuesday, and the vet was amazed by his progress. He told me I was doing a great job, which made me feel so good. He said that Sid looked and acted like a completely different kitten. However, the bad news is...he switched Sid's food and we've been dealing with some unpleasant problems ever since. As if we didn't have enough troubles!

Happy Turkey Day

Clive Owen Wednesday

Boy, do I have a treat for you today. If you thought Clive was hot with Monica Bellucci in Shoot 'Em Up, check him out with this new chick. Warning: Due to the graphic nature and extreme awesomeness of this clip, I can only provide a link.

So here ya go, Clive Owen as you've never seen him before. Click.

The Movie Version

Confession: I've always wanted to see one of my books turned into a movie. I've got the whole thing worked out in my head. I'd invite all my family and friends and all my friends' friends to the theater and when 'adapted from the book by Amanda Stevens' rolls up on the big screen, we'd all start clapping and cheering like crazy.

Yeah, dream on, right?

Here's a list of books I'd like to see as movies (excluding my own, which would, of course, top my real list):

Gravity by Tess Gerritsen. How is this medical/SciFi thriller not a movie yet? It's got blockbuster written all over. I'd love to see what Ridley Scott could do with it.

True Evil by Greg Iles. This may not be my favorite Iles book, but the premise is so deliciously twisted and evil and I haven't seen a really satisfying Southern thriller since Sam Raimi's The Gift. I can only imagine the creepy, Southern-gothic atmosphere Raimi could create for this one.

The Silver Warriors by Michael Moorcock. Or to be more precise, the whole Ulric series. We're talking a soul-swallowing sword, time travel and an amazing albino champion. In other words, we're talking epic. Which means we need Peter Jackson. (OMG, I just found out in writing this blog that a movie is already in the works. Quick, let me write something about The Dollmaker.

The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart. This is a book that should have been made into a movie forty or fifty years ago. Thinking about what Alfred Hitchcock could have done with it (or any of Stewart's gothic thrillers) gives me shivers (good ones).

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I love, love, love the whole Mars series by Burroughs and I've always wanted to see an adaption for the big screen. When I heard that Robert Rodriguez would direct the film version, I was escstatic. Unfortunately, that project fell through and now I'm thinking it might be just as well because I really don't want to see Rose McGowan as Dejah Thoris (and, please, no Angelina Jolie, either). I think the film is going to be animated/live action now, and the only way I can get on board that train is if they make it a 3D version, ala the new Beowolf (again, no Angelina Jolie, okay?). Disney/Pixar should just go ahead and sign up Robert Zemeckis and Neil Gaiman right now.

Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country

Do you guys read Whitley Strieber? His Communion (a non-fiction description of his experiences with non-human entities) is one of my all-time favorites. Some of his descriptions in that book are absolutely terrifying.

Briefly, on December 26, 1985, Strieber reportedly had an experience in which he thought he was abducted from his cabin in upstate New York by non-human beings. Communion is generally interpreted as a claim of alien abduction, but Strieber says that he draws no firm conclusions about the nature or source of his experience. He refers to the beings as "the visitors," a name chosen to be as neutral as possible, and leaves open the possibility that they are not extraterrestrials and even that they exist only in his mind. (source)

I don't know how Strieber feels about the movie version of Communion, but I enjoyed it, particularly Christoper Walken. Of course, I love Walken in pretty much anything.

If you haven't checked out Strieber's website, Unknown Country, I highly recommend that you do so. It's fascinating reading, and his post on the 'evil gene' inspired a plot twist in The Whispering Room (MIRA Books, March, 2009).

Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton will be doing a 3D version of Alice in Wonderland. You can read more about at the Hollywood Reporter. Over at Cinematical, they're speculating on what roles will go to Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. The Mad Hatter for Johnny and the Queen for Helena?

Remember White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane? Grace Slick had some pipes on her, didn't she?

Who is Nina Frost?

Find out what your rock star name would be with the rock star name generator. Mine is Nina Frost. How cool is that (no pun intended)? I like the name so much, I've already used it in a book. My pop star name is Miss Gilmore (wtf?), my rapper name is Monika Ivory, and my C&W name is Mary Lou Hart. Okay, so the rock star moniker is the only one I really like, but this is a great way to generate some new character names, like Billy Flynn, Iggy Wells, and Vera Diamond.

Photo is Natasha Khan of Bat for Lashes

Ocean's 14 Starring James Bond

Great idea! I'd see this movie.

News

I now have the cover art for my January Intrigue, Texas Ransom. I would have preferred Clive Owen on the cover, but we don't always get what we want, now do we? You can read a brief synopsis here.

Other writing news: I've begun work on my third thriller, The Whispering Room, a very dark story that takes place in New Orleans and the bayou country. Too early to give out many details, but I think it just may be my creepiest book yet.

Sid news: Our ringworm battle continues. Poor little guy still has to be quarantined and it's breaking my heart.

Fugly Mickey

Here is a Brazillian website that's running an 'International Ugly Mickey Contest'. The best I can tell, the contest is over, but you can still view the lovely entries, such as the one posted here. Some of them are hysterical. Some are just downright disturbing. Worth a gander. (source Boing Boing)

Déjà vu All Over Again

What's up with all the remakes lately? Is there no creativity left in Hollywood? I understand 3:10 to Yuma is an excellent movie, maybe even an Oscar contender. But it's still a remake.

Dark Horizons is reporting that a High Noon remake is in the works. I have no idea who will be cast in the Gary Cooper role, but my money is on Naomi Watts for the Grace Kelly part. Why? Because she seems to be in every friggin' remake lately.

I have nothing against her, per see. She's a lovely actress. But I thought she was badly miscast in Peter Jackson's King Kong (that role called for an ingenue, hello!), and now I hear she's slated to star in a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds . This is an outrage, I tells ya. What's next? Rear Window? Psycho? Oh, yeah.

Here are a few more remakes on the way:

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly)
C.H.U.D. (directed by Rob Zombie)
Grease (lets hope Jessica Simpson is just a rumor)
Escape from New York (Kurt Russell is Snake Plissken)
Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro--this could be great!)
The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 (Denzel and Travolta)
Barbarella (Robert Rodriguez)
I Am Legend (Omega Man)

Subservient Chicken

Here's a good site to kick off WTF Thursday. The Subservient Chicken. Type in a command and he'll jump right to it. Be sure to have him 'fly'.

Clive's Hypnotic Eyes

"The sexiest part of the body is the eyes. Corny, but that's what I believe. They're what connect us as human beings."
--Clive Owen

Another Martini for George Clooney

I love these George Clooney Martini commercials.

Selecting a Title

I once had an agent tell me that she could make a sale on the title alone if it had the right resonance. So needless to say, I place a great deal of importance in selecting titles.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorites:

1. Snakes on a Plane
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Psycho
4. Cemetery of the Nameless
5. Silence of the Lambs
6. Saw
7. Dirty Pretty Things
8. To Kill a Mockingbird
9. The War of the Worlds
10. The Bone Garden

Got Coffee?

Hey, remember when Brad Pitt was cool?

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

Here's a really fun blog and another of those great time-wasters because, you know, you just can't have too many of those. The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

Behold: Tom's Life-Size Doll

Is it just me, or is there something...odd about this picture?

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

News

My big news this week is of the personal nature. We've adopted a little stray kitten that my husband found wandering around near his office. The poor little thing was half-starved, infested with parasites and, yes, the dreaded ringworm.

We've had him for about three weeks now, and he's been under almost constant stress, what with the change of environment and food and, worst of all, a ten-day quarantine at the vet's because he bit one of the assistants. He's home now, but we're still keeping him quarantined in a separate room in the hopes of containing the ringworm. My big cat, Lola, has the most glorious, glossy black coat...it would break my heart if she got it.

We've named our boy Sid, after Sid Vicious. For one thing, he's a little on the scruffy side, and for another, see above biting incident. Oh, and his hair has the most awesome spike! We love him and we're hoping for a complete recovery. I'll post pictures soon.

As for writing news...I got nuthin'.

Becoming Bond

It's been a year since the fabulous Casino Royale premiered at Leicester Square in London with the queen in attendance, and I thought it might be fun to look back at some of the crap poor Daniel Craig had to put up with after signing on to become the sixth James Bond.

Bond fans claimed he was too blonde, too short, too frail to be a convincing 007 (see photo). Not handsome enough, not suave enough, not James Bond enough (again, see photo). And God knows, he'd never be able to pull off wearing a tux (see video below).

Then came the rumors from the set--he'd gotten two teeth knocked out the first day of filming and he couldn't handle the Aston Martin's stick shift (both rumors totally bogus). A website run by disgruntled Pierce Brosnan fans called for a boycott of Casino Royale and all future Bond films staring Craig (and that boycott worked, too, because the movie only earned a measly $600 million worldwide, the highest grossing Bond film of all time).

Critics predicted Craig would be a miserable failure in the role and he'd end up being a one-picture Bond, just like George Lazenby (note: according to the Daily Mail, Daniel Craig recently signed a record-breaking, $60 million deal to play James Bond for four more films--I should be such a miserable failure!).

The rest, as they say, is history.

Minotaur vs. Centaur

Here is one of those great time-wasting sites that I love so much.

Who would win in a fight between a minotaur armed with a trident and a centaur armed with a crossbow?

To find out what George Clooney thinks, click here:

How about Josh Harnett, Malcolm McDowell (great answer!) or Clive Barker?

Click to view all the celebrity judges.

Clive Owen: International Man of Mystery

Clive Owen is The International--not to be confused with Christopher Walken’s The Continental on SNL (lol).

For anyone who still wishes Clive had been signed to play James Bond (for the record, I’m not one of them. I couldn’t be happier with the current 007), this action-thriller could be for you.

An obsessive Interpol agent leads an investigation into an all powerful banking institution in an attempt to expose connections to weapons sales, corruption, and murder. As he comes up against resistance from his own law enforcement agency, his obsession for the case deepens. Naomi Watts will play a Manhattan assistant district attorney who partners with the agent to take down the bank. (Sources: IGN, Coming Soon, Cinematical, Cinema Blend)

Sounds like it could be right up my alley.

Watch this to see how Clive feels:

Twist Endings

Just call me the poor man’s M. Night Shyamalan. I used to think that I had to add a twist ending to every book, or else I wasn’t doing my job as a suspense writer properly. Every plot needs its twists and turns, of course, but I’m talking about a big, shocking, oh-my-God-I-did-not-see-that-coming reveal that gives readers and moviegoers something to think about for days...years, even. Now I’ve come to realize that not every story lends itself to a twist ending, but I still love them.

Here is my list of shocking twists:

Identity

Frailty

Unbreakable

Memento

The Sixth Sense

Mulholland Dr.

The Game

The Usual Suspects

Fight Club

And...tada!

Planet of the Apes (the granddady of all twist endings for me)

X-Files 2: The Movie

Woohoo!!!

According to Movie News, "fans of The X-Files no longer have to rely on Internet rumors to seek the truth about a sequel to the 1998 movie based on the popular TV series. Fox has announced production will start Dec. 10 on the sequel, which reunites the show's stars, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The studio also picked July 25 as the U.S. release date. Series creator Chris Carter will direct the still-untitled film.

Shooting will take place in Vancouver. The studio is saying little about the film's story line. All that is being revealed is that it is a "supernatural thriller" and that the movie will take the complicated relationship between FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in unexpected directions as Mulder continues on his quest for the truth and Scully remains inextricably tied to her partner's pursuits." (Source)

Since the X-Files is my favorite TV show of all time, this is indeed music to my ears. And just to get us in the mood:



Unpopular Opinion: I loved Doggett!

What does your pizza say about you?

Click here to find out.

This is what mine says about me:

People may tell you that you have a small appetite... but you aren't under eating. You just aren't a pig. (Depends on whether I'm on deadline or not.)

You are a very picky pizza eater. Not any pizza will do. You fit in best in the Northeast part of the US. (With my Texas twang/Arkansas drawl? I don't think so.)

Your taste in food tends to favor what's rich and comforting. You prefer food that will definitely satisfy you. (Comforting yes, rich no.)

You are eclectic, stylish, and totally random with your choices. (Two out of three ain't bad.)

You are definitely unique and artistically inclined. You should consider traveling to Prague. (Prague sounds fun!)

The stereotype that best fits you is hippie. You knew it was coming. (Hmmm...interesting deduction.)

News

It's Friday so it must be news day!

The two online serials (Last Chance Cafe and Bedroom Window) I wrote some time ago for eHarlequin.com are now available for purchase for a whopping 89 cents. They're called minis and they've created some pretty cool cover art for them (see above). As I mentioned in an earlier post this week, Bedroom Window was one of the featured serials that ran through Halloween.

It's been a good week. I found out that The Whispering Room, my third MIRA thriller, is scheduled for March, 2009, and I'm already working on the cover art. This story excites me a great deal because it combines the emotional tug of The Dollmaker with the really creepy atmosphere of The Devil's Footprints. At least that's the plan.


Blog News: Clive Owen Wednesday has been a huge success. The spike in traffic on that day has been amazing (and amusing). I love it! I'm now considering a Clive Owen Week. Or why not All Clive All The Time? Can you imagine what would happen to my sales if I could somehow get him on one of my covers?!

Just so you'll know, my blog schedule is as follows:

Monday--"Ain't it Cool?" (Basically, whatever strikes my fancy)
Tuesday--"Top Ten List (The best, the worst, yada yada yada)
Wednesday--"Clive Owen Wednesday" (The one we all wait for)
Thursday--"WTF?" (The what-were-they-thinking/what-will-they-think-of-next posts)
Friday--"News" (and sometimes gossip)

Hide In Plain Sight

I'm a thriller writer. I write about chararcters who are being hunted by bad guys that want to hurt them. In really creative ways. I've used the old 'hide in plain sight' ploy before, but I can't believe I never thought of this. Because it's not at all conspicuous.

Here it is, folks! The Japanese ninja skirt that turns into a Coca Cola machine to ward off attackers!

Really, Nicole Kidman? Really?

The first honor on WTF? Thursday goes to the usually impeccable Nicole Kidman for this little ensemble she wore to the ARIA Award Ceremony in Sydney. According to reports, Nicole seemed happy about the crowd's overly enthusiatic reponse to her arrival...until a few minutes later when her P.R. person came rushing over with a coat. Call me crazy, but I thought that's what mirrors were for.

Still, wouldn't it be great to always have someone standing at the ready to cover your...faux pas?